Decorticate Posturing Above Red Nucleus

The red nucleus is anatomically at the intercollicular level and thus lesions above the red nucleus tend to cause decortication and lesions below decerebration.

Decorticate posturing above red nucleus. Decorticate posture is stiff with legs held out straight fists clenched and arms bent to hold the hands on the chest. This condition is more common in comatose patients who have developed lesions above the red nucleus and below the thalamus. What causes decorticate posturing.

The first is the disinhibition of the red nucleus with facilitation of the rubrospinal tract. The following are some of the causes of decorticate posturing. While decorticate posturing is still an ominous sign of severe brain damage decerebrate posturing is usually indicative of more severe damage at the rubrospinal tract and hence the red nucleus is also involved indicating a lesion lower in the brainstem.

The red nucleus is anatomically at the intercollicular level and thus lesions above the red nucleus tend to cause decortication and lesions below decerebration 3 8 as compression advances. The rubrospinal tract facilitates motor neurons in the cervical spinal cord supplying the flexor muscles of the upper extremities. This posturing signals that there is damage to the nerve pathway that connects the spinal cord and the brain.

Decorticate posturing is a type of abnormal or pathologic posturing not to.